Well Obama was elected with a lot of union support, and guess what, there are Americans who make tires AND belong to unions. Since the Chinese are taking up a bigger and bigger part of the tire market, the union have decided that instead of becoming more competative, they're going to call in a favour. So they tell Obama "the Chinese aren't playing fair, blah, blah" and Obama nails China with a tariff to suck up to his electorate.

Congrats, Democracy has finally progressed to the point where those who elect the official really do get to call the shots...unfortunately the electorate is generally made up of short-sighted, narrow-minded citizens (not that I blame them).

If anyone or anything is short sighted, it's the unions. If unions truly had the worker's best interest at heart, they wouldn't run the economic engine that provides for their members into the ground. Obviously, Obama doesn't even think that unions can be competitive. Imagine that.

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“Man has such a predilection for systems and abstract deductions that he is ready to distort the truth intentionally, he is ready to deny the evidence of his senses only to justify his logic”
--Fyodor Dostoevsky